Shenanigans in the Cabinet

Have you seen that photo?

A WARNING: This post is petty, but I need answers.

If you are an evangelical who wastes any time during the day, you’ve seen it.

If you're an evangelical who doesn't, you will see it when you get home.

I waste time, so I saw it for the first time this morning on twitter. I tried to hurry past it, but it showed up three more times after that. I cringed but shook it off at first, because… well… because… I didn't have the stinking energy.

Ever felt like that?

Like, there are so many things that are problematic about this, but it will take a good 40 minutes of my day to even give the mental, spiritual energy to saying why it's problematic.

That 40 minutes will turn into another 80 minutes of trying to respond graciously to the immediate caucascious remarks and fury that will flood my wall and ain’t nobody got time.

But then my 2:00 canceled.

Naturally, I did what all millennials do with unexpected free time—mosey on into the vortex of feed-dom.

Low and behold, there it was again, that photo.

So I decided I would stop scrolling and be apoplectically productive.

I bet you think I am going to quote bunch of bible verses about how God hates worship at the expense of the poor and the oppressed but I won’t because (1) that would be condescending and (2) this big fat pile of receipts called my ministerial history knows that would be pointless because people like the ones in the picture only care about the important passages.

Verses about watching what you eat when you dine with rulers are irrelevant because folks like the one in the picture don't need to be reminded of Proverbs 23. It’s me that needs to be reminded about praying for kings and rulers.

Never mind the fact that nobody is praying in the picture.

So I am not going to quote the bible.

That would be foolish.

I am gonna ask some questions though because I need answers; and if you're still reading this, after all that, you probably need some too.

At the outset, we have to acknowledge that there is way too much happening in that picture to expect that anyone who posted it or reposted it with a flame and praise hands rather than a barf or eye-roll emoji will ever take it down or apologize.

That is just something we have to accept.

It’s also why this blog is not for them, it's for us.

Those of us who have just resigned to the decision to laugh in order to keep from crying.

Those of us who shake our heads at least four times a day in what can only be described as an odd combination of grief, disbelief, and the terrifying realization that: ’yo, that Harlot Babylon stuff might actually be for real, for real' soon followed by the thought that if it is for real, we might just make it out okay in the end after all, which is then followed by a mental image of Napoleon Dynamite’s brother Kip going “yesssss”.

This blog is for those of us who have wondered at least 500 times since 2016 if we were crazy.

Let me start by saying this:

WE ARE NOT CRAZY.

Auntie Zora said it best, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

So in keeping with using humor to cope with my pain, here are my questions:

1. Hasn’t God been moving since movement began moving? How come you being in the White House with an acoustic-electric Martin, skinny jeans and a fedora singing a CCLI song means God is moving there all of a sudden? He wasn’t moving before you got there? He won’t be moving when you leave?

2. Isn’t the biggest threat to religious freedom the undermining of democracy? Isn't that what this whole impeachment thing the Dems made up is about? What do y'all even mean by "religious freedom" anyway? When have (white) Christians ever not been free in America? When you say "religious freedom" do you mean Wicca and Sufism as well? I mean can they do their thing in the White House too or nah?

3. Does worship in the White House make it more anointed? Does praying in the White House make it more powerful?

4. How come some of y’all seem to be so keen on the way liberals pimp black people but can’t see how Trump pimps evangelicals?

5. When you say “so much good coming out of this house”—could you be more specific? I’m sorry the kids in cages need a few examples.

6. If y'all went up there to pray, why isn’t anybody crying in the picture and why isn’t anybody’s decapitated head sitting on a platter or rolling on the floor? I’ve heard that happens when prophets meet unrepentant and immoral kon

7. Isn’t that picture more about proximity to power and popularity, than prophetic witness? Name a couple of rulers on more than one hand in history who loved a prophetic witness…I’ll wait. I mean it’s okay to be a Stan I guess, but do you have to blame Jesus?

8. Does it bother you that once again you have communicated to concerned POC in your congregations (if they are still there when you get back from the field trip) that their bodies are disposable, their outrage is deplorable and their concerns are dismissible?

9. Can we see Gateway Church's tax returns?

10. Did he let y'all touch his hair?